11-year-old spends $44 million in Dubai
Boy’s shopping spree puts spotlight on alleged corruption in Azerbaijan
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Even by the standards of a city that celebrates extravagance, it was a spectacular shopping spree: In just two weeks early last year, an 11-year-old boy from Azerbaijan became the owner of nine waterfront mansions. The total price tag: about $44 million -- or roughly 10,000 years' worth of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan. But the preteen who owns a big chunk of some of Dubai's priciest real estate seems to be anything but average.
His name, according to Dubai Land Department records, is Heydar Aliyev, which just happens to be the same name as that of the son of Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev. The owner's date of birth, listed in property records, is also the same as that of the president's son.
Officials in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, declined to comment on how the president's son -- or at least an Azerbaijani schoolboy with the same birth date and the same name as the son's -- came to own mansions on Palm Jumeirah, a luxury real estate development popular with multimillionaire British soccer stars and others with cash to burn. Ilham Aliyev's annual salary as president is the equivalent of $228,000, far short of what is needed to buy even the smallest Palm property.
Azer Gasimov, the president's spokesman, declined to discuss the Dubai real estate purchases. "I have no comment on anything. I am stopping this talk. Goodbye," he said when contacted by telephone and told about the names on the property records. Gasimov did not respond to requests for further comment sent by fax, e-mail and cellphone text message.
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In addition to recording nine properties owned by Heydar Aliyev, the now-12-year-old schoolboy, Dubai's Land Department also has files in the names of Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva. President Aliyev has two daughters with the same names and roughly the same ages. Their exact dates of birth could not be established, but various reports indicate Leyla's birthday is the same as that of the Azerbaijani woman who figures in the Land Department records.
In all, Azerbaijanis with the same names as the president's three children own real estate in Dubai worth about $75 million, property data indicate. Dubai real estate dealers with knowledge of some of the transactions said the purchases were made by a buyer representing Azerbaijan's ruling family. The dealers said the properties were paid for upfront.
Ali Kerimli, chairman of the Azerbaijani Popular Front, an opposition party, said in a telephone interview, "We all know that our country is one of the most corrupt." But when told about the Dubai purchases, he added that he was surprised at the apparent lack of effort to conceal them.
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The rush to move assets overseas, often with scant regard for returns, is a common feature of many oil-producing nations, where corrupt elites seek to ensure that their wealth is safe just in case political winds at home change. The phenomenon is part of the "resource curse," an ailment that has deformed the economies and politics of corruption-addled, oil-producing nations from Nigeria to Venezuela.
